The History of The Fridge Freezer

Way before mechanical refrigeration systems were introduced, people cooled their food with ice and snow, either found locally or brought down from the mountains.

Artificial refrigeration was demonstrated by William Cullen at the University of Glasgow in 1748. However, he did not see the importance of his invention or use his discovery for any practical purpose. In 1805, an American inventor, Oliver Evans, designed the first fridge freezer refrigeration machine. The first practical refrigerating fridge freezer machine was built in 1834 and it used a vapour compression cycle. An American physician, John Gorrie patented not a refrigerator but the process of liquefying gas in 1876 that is part of basic refrigeration technology to this day.

Fridge freezers from the late 1800s until 1929 used the toxic gases ammonia, methyl chloride, and sulphur dioxide as refrigerants. Many explosions, fires and fatal accidents occurred in the 1920s when methyl chloride leaked out of refrigerators. Three corporations launched collaborative research to develop a less dangerous method of refrigeration for these fridge freezers and their efforts lead to the discovery of freon gas. In just a few years, compressor refrigerators using Freon gas would became the standard for almost all home kitchens. Only decades later, would people realize that these chlorofluorocarbons endangered the ozone layer of the entire planet. Nowadays we use CFC free gasses in all our fridge freezers.

In more recent times, the American style fridge freezer has become very popular in Europe as the price of these types have tumbled due to more manufacture brands developing their own. But you do need a big kitchen to house them and many users claim storage is poor compared with there size especially if you buy one with ice and water compartments.